Why Nairobi’s Pipeline estate is an accident waiting to happen

In the face of the recent collapse of a residential flat in Huruma, a closer look should be given this area of ever-dripping clothes, cheap lodgings and even cheaper women

It was April 7, 2015. A piercing scream rent the air a few minutes past nine in the morning. This writer was visiting a lady friend in a cramped flat, on the second floor of a block of flats owned by a retired senior police officer.

The screamer let out another ear-splitting howl and within minutes, everyone was on the ground floor washrooms. A neighbour had caught a young man having sex with his elder sister in the washrooms. The girl was in her 20s while the boy was in his late teens.